1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for managing multimedia content such as moving images, still images, and/or audio.
2. Description of the Related Art
When an image of a person is captured by a digital camera or a digital video camcorder, for the person being captured in the image (hereinafter referred to as the photographee) to be able to view the image, the person has to search for the data content including the image and access this data content to copy the image onto a personal device. In particular, it is a burden for a user to search for the data content including the desired image, e.g., an image of a user and/or a friend of the user. Moreover, this burden has increased even more since data content is often shared and the cumulated amount of data included in the data content is enormous.
To deliver the desired content data to a photographee, the photographer will need to obtain the photographee's personal information such as an E-mail address. To obtain this information, however, time and work is required in addition to the time and work required for capturing and preparing the image.
To solve these problems, a method for directly or indirectly adding additional information (hereinafter referred to as ‘meta-data’), such as an ID, time, location, an E-mail address of the photographee to an image has been researched. In some cases, the method has actually been implemented.
An example is an apparatus for obtaining information that can be used as meta-data in which the meta-data is recorded in association with an image in the imaging apparatus. For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. H06-67291 discloses a method for adding a positioning function based on a global positioning system (GPS) to an imaging apparatus and recording positional information obtained by the GPS function together with an image. Here, the positioning function is a function for determining a position based on GPS signals emitted from at least three orbiting GPS satellites.
Portable terminals, such as personal data assistants (PDAs) and cellular phones, are also put to wide use. Personal information, such as an E-mail address, telephone number, and personal schedule, stored in these portable terminals can be used as meta-data. Wire communication technologies, such as RS232C, USB, IEEE1394, P1284, SCSI, a modem, and Ethernet, can easily be applied to such portable terminals. Moreover, the development of wireless communication has progressed. Some known wireless communication technologies include Bluetooth, using radio waves in the bandwidth of 2.4 GHz having a maximum communication distance of 10 m to 100 m, IEEE802.11b wireless LAN, using radio waves in the bandwidth of 2.4 GHz having a maximum communication distance of about 100 m, and IrDA, using infrared rays having a maximum communication distance of about 2 m.
A method for obtaining personal information from a portable terminal held by a photographer or photographee and adding this information to an image as meta-data by adding a wireless communication function to an imaging apparatus is proposed. Such a method is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-94857.
This kind of personal information, however, is information concerning individual privacy, and, thus, it is problematic to carelessly attach this information to an image as meta-data. For example, when using a service such as photo sharing, the photographee has to disclose his/her personal data to receive or search for an image in the content data.
Furthermore, for known technologies, normally, only the photographer is allowed to add meta-data to an image or to use the meta-data since the procedures for adding meta-data to an image are carried out on the imaging apparatus.